Had it not been for Orrin Post the young farm manager would actually have been swamped with the details of the farmwork. As he gained strength (and Orrin did that rapidly) he relieved Hiram of many petty duties that had begun greatly to try the latter. Helpful and pleasant as Orrin Post always was, he did not grow any more communicative about himself as their intimacy increased. His past was a sealed book to everybody about Sunnyside. Even Miss Delia Pringle confessed to the young farm manager that she had never met such a close-mouthed person. "A dentist's forceps wouldn't pull anything out of that Post--no more than as though he was a post," she declared. "But he is a mighty nice fellow." The workmen at Sunnyside and the other neighbors had at first referred to the stranger as "that tramp," but after a time they warmed up to Orrin. He was friendly, and was always willing to bear a hand at any job. The ditching was completed and the logs laid in the drains and covered. Miss Pringle's burned-over patch was certainly improved in appearance. The sprouts and bushes were growing rapidly green and would soon completely hide the unsightly stumps. Even the most critical neighbors owned to the improvement. But some of them carped at Hiram's underdraining scheme. That twenty acres never had amounted to much and it never would, according to these people. "Digging the drains was all right, Mr. Strong," said Turner, who held the farm back of Miss Pringle's. "That is, the ditches would have been all right, except they'd have been in the way of plowing and tilling. "But when you threw in the logs and covered them up you did a fool's trick, if you'll allow me, who was farming, it's likely, when your daddy was born, to say so. A fool trick--yes, sir!" But Hiram only laughed pleasantly at the grizzled old farmer's criticism, saying: "I cannot say I believe you are right and I am wrong, Mr. Turner; but there is one thing that will settle the question." "What is that, young man?" "Time," replied Hiram, quietly. "Ha! I guess that is so," agreed the aged farmer. "Maybe you ain't so big a fool as you appear." Criticism did not bother Hiram Strong, and as he told Mr. Turner he could afford to wait for time to prove him right. He knew that even the owner of Sunnyside Farm, Mr. Bronson, felt some doubt regarding the value of the kind of underdraining his young farm manager had done. And it had cost a pretty penny! But now came the plowing for corn and Hiram had four weeks of steady plowing and raking to get the fallow land into shape for his corn crop. And he did most of the plowing with the Percherons and the double-disc plow himself. There being little culch on the land, this make of plow worked remarkably well.